Elspeth

JeffA2 said:

icoco3 said:

Beyond the sanctity of my data is the fact I have full confidence in the security of my iPhone.  I do not have to fear theft of my private data.  Moreover, I store passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.  It is more than just securing a few photos.

Your personal information has always been searchable with a warrant because it was in plain site (on paper, etc) but now it can be stored in an electronic vault that can not be opened.  They still can subpoena records from the phone company, bank, etc.

The 4th amendment may allow them to perform the search, but the 5th says I do not have to assist them.

My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?

The data is not beyond the reach of the police...the ability to read the data is.  Search warrants do not make something that is unreadable suddenly readable.  Further, search warrants do not allow the police to force someone to do anything.  If Apple had the data the police wanted, Apple would have to turn it over.  And Apple has turned over every piece of data that they do have for this phone, such as backups.  But Apple doesn't "have" software to make the phone do what the police want the phone to do, the police want to make Apple make the software for them.  Search warrants do not allow that...the All Writs Act doesn't allow the police to do that.

The case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court in the end.  If USDOJ wins, by that time all the information on the phone will be useless due to age (as it probably already is), but everyone in the US and lots of people around the world will have been irrevocably harmed.  Drug manufacturers will be forced to make death penalty drugs they don't want to make, because lethal execution is legal, but if the government doesn't have the drugs it cannot be carried out.  Regular Citizen Joe will be forced to spy on his or her family members or neighbors, because they trust him.  Regular Citizen Jane could be forced to prostitute herself to a suspected terrorists to let the feebs get recordings of the guy and they cannot get close but she can cause he fancies her.  Heck, I could even see the reach of the AWW under the theory put for buy the USDOJ to require Citizen Joe to kill someone at the behest of the government because Citizen Joe can get close enough to the person the government wants dead.

There is no limit to the reach of the government to force you to do that which you stridently oppose if the USDOJ wins this case.

radster360 said:

Though I hope that there is no GovtOS, would these employees be charged with "Contempt of Court"? 

The court order is against Apple. The court presently has no jurisdiction over individual employees.  That could be established, but then the USDOJ would be fighting the case on multiple fronts because the individuals have rights in addition to those pled by Apple (namely the constitutional ban against slavery and indentured servitude). Further, once they are no longer employees it would violate U.S. law for the coders to unilaterally use trade secret information without consent of the owner of that trade secret (and a court could not lawfully order otherwise because the prohibition is a statutory one that Congress would have to override first.)

that the feebs are finally saying "well then give us the source code and keys" indicates that someone on their legal team finally understands the All Writs Act. Apple can only be compelled to turn over that which it has. It has the original source code and security authenticate codes. Apparently, the feebs don't employ or contract with any hackers who can reverse engineer the source code which would moot the first part but not the second part. 

jungmark said:

singularity said:

Saying you will quit if x happens is very easy. Quiting when x happens is a different proposition especially when it means giving up a job with benefits etc

They are high demand workers. Someone will hire them. 

Likely before the ink is dry on their resignation letters

I think your interpretation of the AWA is suspect but that's a matter for others. Your conclusion, however, is alarming. While I support the DOJ's original court order, I would be opposed to Apple turning over its encryption keys. Doing so places every current phone at risk of a man-in-the-middle attack. I would be surprised (and horrified) if a court found that risk acceptable. The DOJ's original approach is far short of that and they have cited relevant (so they think) precedent for using the AWA to compel the creation of code. That's where the court fight will play out.

That is exactly what the AWA allows...for a person to be required to turn over what they already have. It is superior to a straight subpoena because there are defenses to a subpoena for turning over things like trade secret. Had the judge ordered the surrender of the source code and keys Apple would have little in the way of argument. 

But the source code is already on every phone running the iOS already. The feebs, in going this route silently admit they are not as sophisticated as they should be since they don't already have hackers hacked in to the code. 

Technologically speaking, the County of San Bernardino is seriously at fault here. There should be no court case over this particular phone because if the County was using the built in administration features properly, or the software they purchased a license for this phone for, the County sysadmin could deactivate the wipe feature remotely and could prevent the user from changing that setting (and I know this to be true because I wrote the policy for my own company and know how those features work on iOS and Android and work closely with our technology distribution and management teams...when his story broke we confirmed that we had control of our own devices through our security policies and proved it on live devices...and BYOD was promptly ended.)